California VBM Ballots Still Great for GOP

PDI has updated the VBM ballots returned so my spreadsheet is updated. Thank you, PDI. You make a numbers geek like me happy.

Statewide the total number of VBMs increased by 41%. The returns went from 3.4% of all VBM ballots mailed to 4.8%. Day to day statewide changes aren’t that telling because some days more Democratic or more Republican counties might be reporting. Ballots returned were only D+5, 41%D/36%R, decreasing the returned from D+8 to D+7. Since the statewide Democratic ballot advantage is D+19 you’d normally expect it to move in the other direction when it’s only D+8. That hasn’t been the case so far.

CA-10 went from D+1 to E
CA-16 went from R+1 to D+6
CA-21 went from D+17 to D+12

There’s a lot of change here, because these are districts that, for the most part, haven’t reported a lot of returns and they can be heavily influenced by Republican leaning counties reporting but not Democratic leaning counties and vice-versa. All these numbers are good for the GOP, however, if they want to win these three districts.

Of the remaining competitive districts, the only change was CA-48 going from R+19 to R+18 and CA-49 going from R+14 to R+12. Both of these movements are relatively small and don’t really impact the Republican advantage.

CA-49 was R+1 in the primary and R+8 in 2016, so it should definitely move toward the Democrats as more San Diego County ballots come in. The VBM return percentage went from 5.0% to 9.3% in this district, so that’s not a lot of movement considering they nearly doubled the ballots. Even with so many San Diego county ballots added the ballot differential was still R+9.

Based on what we’re seeing so far, I still don’t see Democrats flipping any districts, although there aren’t enough CA-10 ballots in to make a strong judgment.

CA-7, 16, and 24 should be close with the ballot return differentials they currently have, although CA-16, like CA-10 has a low return rate. CA-24, on the other hand, has already seen 11% of their ballots returned, with almost an equal number of Republican and Democratic ballots.

The only data I have for time is from the 2018 primary. Fortunately, it’s the election that best approximates environment. Go to the right side of the spreadsheet and you can compare 15 days out from the primary and general elections. Republicans did better after the 15 day out date than before. So if that’s any indication these return differentials shouldn’t move toward the Democrats.Of course, the numbers are so bad for Democrats you’d think they really would have to.

I continue to believe that Democrats will beat the ballot return differential by winning NPP voters in most districts. So Republicans will need to beat the differential by at least 5 points outside the Central Valley.